I sat outside the Baltic in the sun, enjoying his singing and guitaring... didn't feel like leaving.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
a musician outside the baltic
I sat outside the Baltic in the sun, enjoying his singing and guitaring... didn't feel like leaving.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
a walk in newcastle
Last Saturday I did a long walk in Newcastle. I'd been to Newcastle several times, either for work-related meetings or to see a movie at Tyneside, a charming independent cinema-theater. But I'd been wanting to spend some time walking and exploring the city. Steve (one of the professors I work with) had, in fact, given me a 2-3 hour walking tour of the city in early August and he'd pointed out the Byker Wall in the distance. The Byker Wall is a public housing project ("social housing" in the UK). I had read about it as an undergraduate architecture student, part of my early interest in urban housing. So last Saturday Byker was the destination of my walk but I spent quite a bit of time exploring the city along the way.
Starting from the Central Station (the main railway station),
I walked through Grainger town,
the historic centre which was planned and built in the early/mid 1800s,
towards the Tyne Bridge,
a beautiful compression arch suspended deck bridge built in the 1920s (photo below),
and Quayside,
the area along the River Tyne which has been the centre of urban regeneration efforts since the 1990s,
where I crossed the Millenium Bridge (the white bridge in the distance in the above photo; also in the photo below),
to sit in the sun outside the Baltic, a flour mill beautifully converted into a contemporary art gallery (photos below), and
the Sage (the shiny curvaceous building in the photo above), designed by Norman Foster,
one of those iconic architectural projects
that have been at the centre of controversial urban regeneration efforts
in deindustrialized cities in the West.
Controversial because they spend millions (taxpayers' money) on projects that usually do little (often nothing) to address
the socio-economic problems and massive unemployment caused by deindustrialization.
Newcastle, I must tell you here,
had a thriving coal mining & manufacturing industry
which Thatcher killed in the 1980s.
On my first walk in the city with Steve, he'd told me that many parts of the city used to be grimy, black, during the heydey of its coal mining & manufacturing days.
Maybe that is why my mother remembers Newcastle as a pretty horrible looking city (she'd lived and worked for a year as a physiotherapist near Newcastle in the mid-1960s).
Newcastle was also one of the world's largest ship-building and repairing centres,
of whose history I do not know enough.
To come back to my walk,
I then walked back over the Millenium Bridge, and away from the river
through an industrial looking area,
to the Byker Wall (seen in the distance in the photo below).
I spent quite a bit of time roaming about Byker and this calls for a separate blog post, especially since I want to first finish reading some recent academic articles I downloaded on the project before I put up any more photos. Byker, which was built in the mid-1970s, is well-known among the architectural-planning community - it was designed by British architect Ralph Erskine and was a project that involved participatory design, unusual for social/public housing projects in Britain at the time. And yet, Byker has had its share of social problems. This is what I want to read about. So more in a couple of days.
Starting from the Central Station (the main railway station),
I walked through Grainger town,
the historic centre which was planned and built in the early/mid 1800s,
towards the Tyne Bridge,a beautiful compression arch suspended deck bridge built in the 1920s (photo below),
and Quayside,
the area along the River Tyne which has been the centre of urban regeneration efforts since the 1990s,
where I crossed the Millenium Bridge (the white bridge in the distance in the above photo; also in the photo below),to sit in the sun outside the Baltic, a flour mill beautifully converted into a contemporary art gallery (photos below), and
the Sage (the shiny curvaceous building in the photo above), designed by Norman Foster,
one of those iconic architectural projects
that have been at the centre of controversial urban regeneration efforts
in deindustrialized cities in the West.
Controversial because they spend millions (taxpayers' money) on projects that usually do little (often nothing) to address
the socio-economic problems and massive unemployment caused by deindustrialization.
Newcastle, I must tell you here,
had a thriving coal mining & manufacturing industry
which Thatcher killed in the 1980s.
On my first walk in the city with Steve, he'd told me that many parts of the city used to be grimy, black, during the heydey of its coal mining & manufacturing days.
Maybe that is why my mother remembers Newcastle as a pretty horrible looking city (she'd lived and worked for a year as a physiotherapist near Newcastle in the mid-1960s).
Newcastle was also one of the world's largest ship-building and repairing centres,
of whose history I do not know enough.
To come back to my walk,I then walked back over the Millenium Bridge, and away from the river
through an industrial looking area,
to the Byker Wall (seen in the distance in the photo below).
I spent quite a bit of time roaming about Byker and this calls for a separate blog post, especially since I want to first finish reading some recent academic articles I downloaded on the project before I put up any more photos. Byker, which was built in the mid-1970s, is well-known among the architectural-planning community - it was designed by British architect Ralph Erskine and was a project that involved participatory design, unusual for social/public housing projects in Britain at the time. And yet, Byker has had its share of social problems. This is what I want to read about. So more in a couple of days.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
a glimpse of london
spent several hours last monday walking through westminister, trafalgar square and soho. i fished out my camera only near westminister though the trafalgar and soho area is much more lively and explorable.
durham cathedral again
Some weekends ago i climbed the central tower of the durham cathedral. a nice never-ending spiral climb to the roof of the tower.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
thoughts on airshows and other "military" events
Last weekend I went with some friends to the Sunderland International Airshow. Airshows, I am told, are popular in Britain. On googling, I found an online 2009 calendar for airshows in Britain - in July alone there were more than 20 airshows in different parts of Britain. The Sunderland International Airshow, which is held on the coast in the city of Sunderland, and is organized by the Sunderland city council, is apparently the biggest free airshow in Europe. There were literally thousands of people the day I went.
I have to say that some of the stuff was a beauty to watch, especially the two teams of jets which flew in choreographed sequences which required precision flying. One of these was an aerobatic team known as the Red Arrows, known for their pink and blue smoke (which is actually vapour, which not only has decorative value but is also used by the team leader to judge wind speed and direction).
However, I could not reconcile myself to the fact that these and most of the other aircraft that I was looking at are basically made for war, or to train soldiers. The Red Arrows is "the public face of the Royal Air Force" and within the UK, they exist to "demonstrate professional excellence of the Royal Air Force and promote recruitment to [it]" (the Red Arrows explained on the RAF website). The aircraft that the Red Arrows fly are basically the RAF's advanced fast jet trainers. The commentary on the loudspeakers at the event informed us that some of these pilots had recently come back from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Not all the aircraft belonged to the military anymore. The photo above is of The Blades, the UK's only full-time civilian-formation display team, which is part of an aviation-based communications business that was started by two ex-RAF men. Most of the pilots are also ex-RAF. The Blades do a lot of corporate flying events such as this.
Then there was the Vulcan (photo below) which was made during the late 1950s as part of UK's/NATO's Cold War defence strategy: it was essentially designed to carry atomic bombs to Russia in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. Later it was used as a display aircraft by the RAF. In the early 1990s, it was sold to a family firm who wanted to maintain her (a friend pointed out that I've used the feminine to refer to the Vulcan - I can't imagine why I did that. I'm tempted to change it but I won't). In 2005, it was bought by the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, a registered charity which has restored it to fly again, to preserve its heritage. No matter how grand it might look in the sky (its quite huge compared to the jets we saw), I cannot see the point of spending millions so that a military aircraft from the Cold War (or any other time) can fly again. Although the trust argues that a flying Vulcan (as opposed to one sitting in a museum) has an educational value, what kind of education are we talking of here?
Serving largely as an interface between the military and the general public, I cannot help but feel that the airshow is a bizarre form of public recreation.
The display that really took the cake in this "bizarre" and even "disturbing" regard was a helicopter that flew in some 8-9 soldiers armed with rifles/machine guns. Two of them descended first near the water and ran inland to the end of the beach and positioned themselves on the ground. These were the "enemy." Then the remaining soldiers descended and the entire exercise showed the audience how soldiers advance toward enemy combatants and take them down while covering each other (so there were rounds fired, empty I am sure, but still). At the end, the two enemy soldiers pretended to be shot and dropped dead.
As if this wasn't enough, some days later at the local public library, I picked up a pamphlet put out there by the DLI Museum (which is a military museum near/in Durham) which is going to organize its Annual Military Vehicle Rally at the end of August - this is the 36th annual rally; the day is a bank holiday in the region. Also they have other one-day events planned for the rest of the year: family activities which cater to all ages: such as "Make a DLI Soldier" in which you can "learn about the different uniforms of the DLI and make your own soldier" (why would I want my kid to do that, I am sure I don't know); "Stories from the Front" in which you can "listen to or read Stories from the Front, then draw a picture to take home" (hmm... I wonder what these stories are going to be and what sort of pictures children will draw); and here's the one that really stunned me: "Wartime Games and Past Times Day" which is described as "Who still plays hopscotch or dominoes or pick-up sticks? Try your hand at a selection of wartime games and crafts." I am really tempted to go check it out... but unfortunately or fortunately, I'll be back in Mumbai by then.
I have to say that some of the stuff was a beauty to watch, especially the two teams of jets which flew in choreographed sequences which required precision flying. One of these was an aerobatic team known as the Red Arrows, known for their pink and blue smoke (which is actually vapour, which not only has decorative value but is also used by the team leader to judge wind speed and direction).
However, I could not reconcile myself to the fact that these and most of the other aircraft that I was looking at are basically made for war, or to train soldiers. The Red Arrows is "the public face of the Royal Air Force" and within the UK, they exist to "demonstrate professional excellence of the Royal Air Force and promote recruitment to [it]" (the Red Arrows explained on the RAF website). The aircraft that the Red Arrows fly are basically the RAF's advanced fast jet trainers. The commentary on the loudspeakers at the event informed us that some of these pilots had recently come back from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Not all the aircraft belonged to the military anymore. The photo above is of The Blades, the UK's only full-time civilian-formation display team, which is part of an aviation-based communications business that was started by two ex-RAF men. Most of the pilots are also ex-RAF. The Blades do a lot of corporate flying events such as this.Then there was the Vulcan (photo below) which was made during the late 1950s as part of UK's/NATO's Cold War defence strategy: it was essentially designed to carry atomic bombs to Russia in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. Later it was used as a display aircraft by the RAF. In the early 1990s, it was sold to a family firm who wanted to maintain her (a friend pointed out that I've used the feminine to refer to the Vulcan - I can't imagine why I did that. I'm tempted to change it but I won't). In 2005, it was bought by the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, a registered charity which has restored it to fly again, to preserve its heritage. No matter how grand it might look in the sky (its quite huge compared to the jets we saw), I cannot see the point of spending millions so that a military aircraft from the Cold War (or any other time) can fly again. Although the trust argues that a flying Vulcan (as opposed to one sitting in a museum) has an educational value, what kind of education are we talking of here?
Serving largely as an interface between the military and the general public, I cannot help but feel that the airshow is a bizarre form of public recreation.The display that really took the cake in this "bizarre" and even "disturbing" regard was a helicopter that flew in some 8-9 soldiers armed with rifles/machine guns. Two of them descended first near the water and ran inland to the end of the beach and positioned themselves on the ground. These were the "enemy." Then the remaining soldiers descended and the entire exercise showed the audience how soldiers advance toward enemy combatants and take them down while covering each other (so there were rounds fired, empty I am sure, but still). At the end, the two enemy soldiers pretended to be shot and dropped dead.
As if this wasn't enough, some days later at the local public library, I picked up a pamphlet put out there by the DLI Museum (which is a military museum near/in Durham) which is going to organize its Annual Military Vehicle Rally at the end of August - this is the 36th annual rally; the day is a bank holiday in the region. Also they have other one-day events planned for the rest of the year: family activities which cater to all ages: such as "Make a DLI Soldier" in which you can "learn about the different uniforms of the DLI and make your own soldier" (why would I want my kid to do that, I am sure I don't know); "Stories from the Front" in which you can "listen to or read Stories from the Front, then draw a picture to take home" (hmm... I wonder what these stories are going to be and what sort of pictures children will draw); and here's the one that really stunned me: "Wartime Games and Past Times Day" which is described as "Who still plays hopscotch or dominoes or pick-up sticks? Try your hand at a selection of wartime games and crafts." I am really tempted to go check it out... but unfortunately or fortunately, I'll be back in Mumbai by then.
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